There are eight candidates running in the fight for Fisher, three with a realistic chance of winning. One wonders sometimes, though, how politics entices so many into its clutches.

Five of the candidates are effectively making up the numbers: they stand to promote specific agendas, or because they believe in the democratic contest, or because they are determined self-promoters. I don’t know.

Perhaps they should merely be grateful that their campaign will never gather pace, will not break through into mainstream consciousness, will not threaten the major parties. Politics can be a nasty business. As Dan Woodyatt found out this week.

The knives are out for Woody in Fisher. The Liberal Party paid him the ultimate backhanded compliment of dedicating a mailout to besmirching his reputation. Nothing in it is untrue, exactly, but it’s couched to be unflattering. Woodyatt is a lawyer in the Crown Solicitor’s office, providing advice to Government. Ergo, reason the Libs, he’s a “Government advisor”. He’s disparaged because he “doesn’t even live in the electorate” (much like Liberal candidate Heidi Harris).

The Libs’ concerted attack on an unaligned independent isn’t unprecedented; after all, they infamously tried to tear down Bob Such. But it implies they think Woodyatt’s a realistic prospect. And since they’ve been conducting party polling in Fisher, we can read a fair bit into their strategy.

The Government is having great fun with the Libs’ “white-knuckled panic”, and indeed their campaign has betrayed some fear and desperation, which is no bad thing: if they’d been as afraid and desperate back in March, things might have been very different.

It’s hard to pinpoint what’s distinguished “Woody” from the glut of non-major party candidates in the southern suburbs Such stronghold. The endorsement of Lyn Such, of course, and the fact that he has actively (and energetically) courted media attention.

The Labor and Liberal candidates, Nat Cook and Heidi Harris, may very well make good members of parliament. The thing is, we wouldn’t know. Their respective parties have successfully managed to keep them wrapped tightly in cotton wool throughout much of the campaign, with most of the commentary (particularly on contentious issues) coming from the likes of Jay Weatherill and Rob Lucas.

In contrast, Woodyatt has emailed a running commentary of the campaign to newsrooms almost every day. He offers himself up for interview more often than is warranted or, by and large, desired. His campaign is highly organised and well-funded (funded, according to his wife, by a bank loan).

He appears a passionate and thoughtful advocate, although he has largely eschewed major policy questions. With its folksy, earnest charm, his campaign shtick, in effect, echoes that Simpsons’ Quimby for Mayor campaign a few years back: “If you were running for Mayor, he’d vote for you!”

Woody also plays the drums, until recently with local indie band The Spooks, whose track “Down The Beach” contains lyrics about an obsessed jilted lover plotting a violent vengeance. That’s accompanied by an online video clip juxtaposing archival footage of Third Reich bombers and battalions with iconic scenes from the Charlie Chaplin parody The Great Dictator.

Not to make too broad a generalisation, but if you’re offended by the lyrics of “Down The Beach”, you’re probably an idiot.

The clip, or part of it, was shown to Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire, who took grave affront. He said it was offensive to the memory of those who fought in the Second World War, including his father, who lost hundreds of his mates when the HMAS Sydney was sunk by the Kormoran. Brokey showed me a golf-ball sized piece of shrapnel he keeps on his office mantelpiece that he says was pulled from his father’s leg.

If he is offended by the use of Nazi and other wartime archival footage, I can appreciate that, but I don’t share it. The use of such vision in popular culture is hardly unusual, nor is using powerful themes of war to underscore music tracks. Metallica’s “One”, for instance, or Megadeth’s “Holy Wars”. Or the 1988 re-release of Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”. Or Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure”.

Others appeared to take offence to the song’s lyrics, which they claimed glorified domestic violence. Woody pointed out the song was written from the perspective of a female lover’s fixation on the man who spurned her (I’m not sure whether the gender of the protagonist should make a difference; presumably knifing and burying a former lover is a no-no regardless of sex?) And in any case, he pointedly added, he didn’t write the thing. He’s just the drummer.

In the fraught pre-election cauldron, this fairly valid caveat went down about as well as the Nuremberg defence: “I was only following orders!”

“I don’t know, I’m not the guy to ask about it – I play drums,” said Woody, reminding me eerily of the pool salesman in The Simpsons who bats off Marge’s insistent inquiries with the rejoinder: “Look, Question Lady, this job is not what I really do, okay? I play keyboards.” (Yes, that’s TWO Simpsons references in one article – a new PB!)

Having played in a band myself, I can safely make two observations here: 1) Pop culture lyrics are not meant to be read as pre-election manifestos, and there aren’t many indie bands whose entire lyrical output would withstand such scrutiny. And 2) drummers generally don’t have much of a clue or a care about the faux-profundity of their frontmen; they just like to hit things.

Not to make too broad a generalisation, but if you’re offended by the lyrics of “Down The Beach”, you’re probably an idiot.

You might want to avoid novels, for starters, in case you read first-person narrative as a glowing endorsement of everything contained therein.

And best eschew any songs whose lyrics explore violent content: Foster The People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”, or Sufjan Stevens’ “John Wayne Gacy Jr”, or anything by Nine Inch Nails, or “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” by The Beatles … the list is broad and endless.

My one-time chief of staff had “Pumped Up Kicks” as his ringtone – does this mean he is planning a shooting spree?

Not everyone was genuinely offended, of course, but nearly everyone made out they were. Brokenshire, incidentally, has already used parliamentary privilege during this campaign to raise untested queries about the grant process that saw $1 million earmarked for anti-violence charity The Sammy D Foundation, whose founder Nat Cook is running for Labor in Fisher. Of yesterday’s fiasco, Bob Such’s widow, Lyn, shrugged: “Well, Robert Brokenshire, he does get outraged quite easily…” Which is surely unarguable.

He was once the Liberal member for neighbouring Mawson, which is probably neither here nor there, but like him, I’m just throwing it out there for people to judge for themselves.

In the end, Woody’s biggest failing was not in playing drums on a pretty-good track, nor defending its content, even though he didn’t write it. The editor who cut my Nine News story yesterday delivered this verdict: “It’s got a great beat – I’ve been humming it all day!”

Sadly, no-one else will get the opportunity to hum along to it online any time soon. The minute it was raised as a potential liability, Woody had it taken down, from YouTube, Soundcloud, even Triple J. When he did finally, sheepishly, email a copy, it was edited down, with vision of Hitler (as opposed to Chaplin) and war atrocities removed. It was an understandable fit of panic, but it did the trick. All of a sudden, it was as if there was something to hide, something to defend.

His biggest mistake, then, was in acting just like the major parties he has so rattled. To hide, to spin, to avoid scrutiny.

Woodyatt has given up a fair bit to run for Fisher. He’s financed his campaign, taken leave from his job (y’know, as a “Government advisor”?) and now, according to reports, been forced to quit his beloved band.

I don’t know if this storm in a teacup will cruel his chances of election, but I hope not; he may not, as advertised, continue the legacy of Bob Such, but he would, like Bob, be a unique asset to state parliament.

Let’s hope, too, The Spooks get “Down The Beach” back up online sometime soon; ironically, suppressing subversive art is something more redolent of Nazi Germany than Australia in 2014.

Tom Richardson is InDaily’s political commentator and Channel Nine’s state political reporter.

From January, he will be joining InDaily’s full-time reporting staff.